New Pond - Koi

[alison]

My sister has just made a pond at the bottom of her garden joining to her next door neighbours garden. If you can imagine it, it cuts over the diagonal corner of both gardens and so belongs half in hers and half in her neighbours. Silly idea I know but they seemed intent on doing it together and I must admit that it looks really nice with 2 identical waterfalls falling one into each garden. It is about 4 ft deep and about 8ft length by 3ft wide. It does have a ledge along the front for plants etc but is a sheer drop at the back. They have done a good job on the pond itself cosmetically.
Anyway this is all by the by really, what I wondered was how her fish will fare because as with all newbies, both her and hubby and their neighbours have been impatient now that water has gone in. Although I have had plants ready for her for weeks now, she only phoned me on saturday and said she was ready for the plants now that they have already bought 16 koi I couldn't believe that they had already got the fish in the pond without any plants already in situ. I know that koi keepers don't really have plants, but her pond was supposed to be more like mine with lots of plants and different species of fish.
I told her that she might lose some of the fish and that I thought it was too many to get all in one go. Only time will tell, but what is your opinion.? Alan you have Koi, Do you think she will be okay? They are only a few inches long at the moment and they do have a good depth to overwinter in. I think they have 1040 gallons. I think they both have a waterfall pump each but only one filterbox which both feed into. Not sure of their size.

[dampflippers]

Oooh! I hope they remain friends!
If either of them move, they should each agree now to add a covenant to the sale to say that the pond must be kept. I hope they kept the corner marker so thare will be no dispute about the boundary.
Having said that, and the fact that I know little, I hope they both enjoy it. I read once on UK ponds about someone who ued to let their pampered koi out into a "proper" pond for the summer, and they came back very healthy when they caught them again for the winter.
They could use this as a learning exercise- if it's too soon, or too many fish, they'll soon find out But at this time of year, surely if they have bought them they need to put them in as soon as poss?

[alison]

Yes Damp. That was my first thought that if they moved what would happen. Also what happens if all the fish want to stay in one side of the pond and not the other. How do they know whose fish is whose in case of any medical emergency. But they really are very happy and very good friends and neighbours so hopefully none of the above will happen. It seems okay in these early days but I certainly could not leave things to someone else to deal with if the fish caught some disease. I will try to get a photo of the finished pond to put on here at some time but they had a leak so it is not fully finished yet.